According to the notion of so-called reflexive modernity (Beck, Giddens & Lash, 1994), uncertainty is an essential element if not the key constituent of life in globalized, highly mobile and increasingly digitalized post-industrial societies. The rapid increase in social, linguistic, and cultural diversity, particularly in urban centers, and an increased rural-urban divide have intensified the perception of risk in a social, political, economic and ecological sense, epitomized by the concept of the “risk society” (Beck, 1992). The impact of this is also traceable in various other areas, such as knowledge and knowledge production (e.g. Lyotard, 1984), learning (e.g. von Glasersfeld 1995) and teaching (e.g. Helsper 2003), cultural identity (e.g. Bhabha, 1994), and the structure of social organisations or institutions (e.g. Foucault, 1982). Whereas modern societies were characterized by a belief in constant and potentially limitless progress (uncertainty as not yet knowing), current (postindustrial) societies have realized that life is much more fundamentally impacted by potentially ungraspable phenomena, such as climate change, and therefore a structural nescience (uncertainty as not being able to know) fundamentally impacts postmodern life.

This creates a substantial challenge for educational institutions and organisations. As knowledge becomes less certain and at the same time much more dispersed and available, students – as future citizens – must adopt a critical lens through which to both understand and act on that knowledge and make sense of it relative to their prior knowledge and experience. They must be empowered “to critically examine beliefs, values, and knowledge with the aim of developing new epistemologies, center multiple ways of knowing, and develop a sense of critical consciousness and agency” (Lopez & Olen, 2018, p. viii). This in turn creates an enormous challenge for educational research to develop theoretical concepts on which appropriate pedagogical settings, approaches and empirical instruments can be built. 

That said, it is very clear that various theoretical conceptualisations of uncertainty are required, in order to understand different aspects of the phenomenon. In this symposium, we will showcase different conceptualisations, explain the fundamental theories they are rooted in and exemplify their implications for curriculum and pedagogy. Specifically, we will explore the conceptualization of uncertainty within experiential learning theory, the theory of ‘Bildung’, and within critical theory. In order to facilitate a comparative perspective, all scholars will respond to the following guiding questions:

1)    What are core concepts of the identified theoretical frame?

2)    What does the theory uniquely bring to the discussion of uncertainty?

3)    What might an examination of uncertainty through this theoretical lens illuminate?

4)    Based on your research in this area, what are the most important implications for teaching and learning? 

The discussant will reflect on the contributions to the symposium, comparing and contrasting the different conceptualizations of uncertainty, and consider shared implications for teaching and learning.

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